How the Eucharist makes the Church: Teresa of Avila in Conversation with John Paul II and John Zizioulas

Abstract

The question explored in this article is how the Eucharist makes the Church as considered in the spiritual theologies of three great theologians—in the communion spirituality of Pope Saint John Paul II, the ecclesial mysticism of Metropolitan John Zizioulas, and in the Eucharistic spiritual theology of St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Universal Church. John Paul’s is a contemplative vision, calling us to lead “completely Eucharistic” lives, to see others in the light of the Trinity as “part of me,” and with Christ, to transform history until its fulfillment in the eschaton. John Zizioulas’s is a vision of Eucharist as our union and communion with the life of God in Trinity at Divine Liturgy, where the Spirit brings charismata from the future, continually transforming us in Christ, and leading us to take responsibility for others and for creation. Teresa of Avila’s vision is of the restoration of unity through the witness of Eucharistic contemplative communion with the suffering Christ and with each other. Her Spirit-filled witness and vision prophetically anticipated and can continue to inform the conversation surrounding the importance of sacramental union to ecclesial union. All three theologians of the Eucharist show us how to live in communio by calling us, first and foremost, to see ourselves as the Body of Christ.  This article asks how we can interpret the concern for the healing of the individual, his reconciliation with the community, and the community's coresponsibility for the ongoing conversion of its members which find paradoxical expression in the punishment codes of medieval and early modern religious life. It asks if and how, in the radically different cultures of modernity, and in view of the Church’s sexual abuse crisis, the tradition of fraternal correction and mutual responsibility might find useful contemporary expression.